Articles appearing in the Catholic Review, official publication of the Archdiocese of Baltimore
| ">December 3, 2003 | Holy Mary, Mother of God |
| ">December 10, 2003 | The Leading Cause of Death |
| ">December 17, 2003 | The Real Miracle |
| ">December 24, 2003 | Understanding Christmas |
| ">December 31, 2003 | Waking the Sleeping Giant |
Recently, a mother told me a story about her daughter. The child was quite precocious. At nine months, she was using words. At two years, she was speaking in complete sentences. One day, as the little girl was getting out of the car, she got her hands in some grease from the door handle. Her mother said: “Honey, don’t touch your dress. You’re full of grease.” The little girl looked up, and said: “Is that what Hail Mary is full of?” Can’t you just see the little girl confusing: “Hail Mary, full of grace…” with “Hail Mary, full of grease…?”
As we begin Advent, we can find no better symbol of our Advent journey than Mary. In the first part of the prayer we call the Hail Mary, we quote the scriptural words of the angel: “Hail, Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.”
At the beginning of the secular New Year, society often uses the image of the new born baby. At the beginning of the Church’s New Year, the first Sunday of Advent, the Church uses the image of the pregnant virgin. As Isaiah the prophet said: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and bear a son. And you shall call him, Emmanuel – God with us.”
The birth of Christ changed human history. We measure time as B.C. (before Christ) of A.D. (Anno Domini – after the year of Our Lord.) Christ’s birth didn’t just change the calendar. It changed how we view time, and how we live time. God didn’t just enter history for the sake of ‘showing up’, but for the purpose of showing how – how we could live like God.
The image of the pregnant Mary captures so much of the richness of Advent, these four weeks before Christmas.
The Mother longing for the birth of her child symbolizes a people longing for the coming of their Messiah. As Mary waits, so we recall age after age of prophets and people awaiting the One who would save them.
The pregnant Mary also represents more than just a moment for one person in history. Mary is the symbol of every Christian throughout time. Each of us at our Baptism was full of grace. Each of us in communion receives the Body of Christ. Each of us in our living tries to give birth to Christ by the was we live in the world. Each of us is the literal meaning of Christopher – a Christ bearer.
Mary, being filled with God, invites us into the deepest possible understanding of Christmas. The great St. Augustine put it so simply and so profoundly: “God became man that man might become God.” God became a human being to share with all human beings the life and the love of God.
So Christmas is not just a memory of a past event. It is the constant reminder of what each individual life is meant to be. We are meant to be ‘other Christs’. Jesus gave His Father to be Our Father, His Spirit to be Our Spirit. You and I now have the same Father Jesus had, and the same Spirit Jesus had. We now have the same life Jesus had. We have by adoption what Jesus had by nature.
That thought is so mind-boggling that it takes more than four weeks of Advent to comprehend. It requires a lifetime to believe it, and to try to live it. That’s why the pregnant Mary, sitting and praying in silence, is such a profound image for us all. We need to sit in silence each day to allow the presence of God within us to come to birth.
So, as we honor Mary who allowed God to come to birth in her in history, we worship the God who comes to birth in us in mystery. God once took on the flesh of Mary to be born in the fullness of time. Now God wants to take on your flesh and my flesh, and be born again in every time.
So, just as we pray to God for each other on earth, so we ask Mary, and all the saints in heaven, to pray to God for us in heaven: “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and as the hour of our death. Amen.”
“What’s the leading cause of death?” someone was asked. The answer given was: “Birth!” We are born, knowing that we will die. The baby, who’s birth in Bethlehem we prepare to celebrate, would die a few short years later in Jerusalem. Father Ron Pytel, who received a miracle sparing his life of one disease, would die a few years later of another disease. Does the life and death of this Jesus help us to understand our own lives and deaths? I think it does.
Years ago, the great scripture scholar and teacher, Fr. Ray Brown, S.S., stated in class: “If Jesus had died of a heart attack on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Christian religion would be very different.” What an understatement!
In truth, had Jesus lived a ‘normal’ life – building a career, marrying, raising children, praying and tithing at the local synagogue, dying surrounded by children and grandchildren - then our understanding of God would be very different. While such a life would indeed be noble and good, Jesus did no such thing. Instead, Jesus lived a radically ‘self-emptying’ life. Rather than use his energies for himself, he used his energies to heal and comfort the lowly and afflicted. Instead of avoiding evil to ‘play it safe’, he came to confront evil, and free people from its power. Instead of placating the rich and powerful who could destroy him, Jesus challenged the rich and the powerful to change their lives and how they thought of God, a challenge which would indeed result in Jesus being destroyed!
What’s the point in all of this? Jesus came to reveal that life is not about looking out for number one. Life is about looking out for one another. It is not how long we live that matters. It is how well we live.
More profoundly, Jesus came to reveal that, if we dared to live lives of unselfish love, that death would cease to have power over us! Death was not a part of God’s plan. Death entered the world through sin and selfishness. Jesus revealed, that, if we put our faith in him, and lived lives of unselfish love, we would live forever. No matter how short our mortal life, or how tragic our death, we would live forever with God if we just tried to live like God!
A miracle is a suspension of the ordinary laws of nature. The course of a disease is stopped. Symptoms disappear. Jesus worked miracles in his earthly life. Yet, for every leper he cured, there were others not cured. For every dead person he raised, there were many more he did not raise. The miracle was not about God playing favorites. The miracle was always about God using a miracle to point beyond it. The power to cure an illness or to extend life pointed to a greater power to cure every disease and extend life forever. To live forever in perfect joy is the promise for those who trust Jesus and try to live like him.
Fr. Ron Pytel was a couple of years behind me in the seminary. I always knew him as a quiet and sensitive person. As a priest, he revealed great pastoral sensitivity, liturgical insight, and commitment to serving his church by embracing the devotional life of his Polish heritage.
Interestingly, I can still remember kneeling before Fr. Ron nearly 30 years ago to receive his First Priestly Blessing. Now, to be truthful, I can’t remember what I did yesterday! But I still have a clear memory of Fr. Ron putting his hands on my head, bending forward, and praying with such intensity that I could feel this overwhelming warmth. It was almost like he was trying to share the Spirit that he had just received, to pour it into me. When I see the rays of light coming from the heart of Jesus in the image of the Divine Mercy, I sense that I experienced that long ago through Ron. A miracle was not just what Ron received. A miracle of God’s mercy is what Ron was and is.
It is in that light of Divine Mercy, in the light of the Christmas star, that Fr. Ron now lives. Allow me to close with a quote from the great theologian, Karl Rahner: “The great sad mistake of many people… is to imagine that those whom death has taken, leave us. They do not leave us. They remain! Where are they? In darkness? Oh, no! It is we who are in darkness. We do not see them, but they see us. Their eyes, radiant with glory, are fixed upon our eyes. Oh, infinite consolation! Though invisible to us, our dead are not absent…. They are living near us, transfigured…into light, into power, into love.”
“What’s the leading cause of death?” someone was asked. The answer given was: “Birth!” We are born, knowing that we will die. The baby, who’s birth in Bethlehem we prepare to celebrate, would die a few short years later in Jerusalem. Father Ron Pytel, who received a miracle sparing his life of one disease, would die a few years later of another disease. Does the life and death of this Jesus help us to understand our own lives and deaths? I think it does.
Years ago, the great scripture scholar and teacher, Fr. Ray Brown, S.S., stated in class: “If Jesus had died of a heart attack on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, the Christian religion would be very different.” What an understatement!
In truth, had Jesus lived a ‘normal’ life – building a career, marrying, raising children, praying and tithing at the local synagogue, dying surrounded by children and grandchildren - then our understanding of God would be very different. While such a life would indeed be noble and good, Jesus did no such thing. Instead, Jesus lived a radically ‘self-emptying’ life. Rather than use his energies for himself, he used his energies to heal and comfort the lowly and afflicted. Instead of avoiding evil to ‘play it safe’, he came to confront evil, and free people from its power. Instead of placating the rich and powerful who could destroy him, Jesus challenged the rich and the powerful to change their lives and how they thought of God, a challenge which would indeed result in Jesus being destroyed!
What’s the point in all of this? Jesus came to reveal that life is not about looking out for number one. Life is about looking out for one another. It is not how long we live that matters. It is how well we live.
More profoundly, Jesus came to reveal that, if we dared to live lives of unselfish love, that death would cease to have power over us! Death was not a part of God’s plan. Death entered the world through sin and selfishness. Jesus revealed, that, if we put our faith in him, and lived lives of unselfish love, we would live forever. No matter how short our mortal life, or how tragic our death, we would live forever with God if we just tried to live like God!
A miracle is a suspension of the ordinary laws of nature. The course of a disease is stopped. Symptoms disappear. Jesus worked miracles in his earthly life. Yet, for every leper he cured, there were others not cured. For every dead person he raised, there were many more he did not raise. The miracle was not about God playing favorites. The miracle was always about God using a miracle to point beyond it. The power to cure an illness or to extend life pointed to a greater power to cure every disease and extend life forever. To live forever in perfect joy is the promise for those who trust Jesus and try to live like him.
Fr. Ron Pytel was a couple of years behind me in the seminary. I always knew him as a quiet and sensitive person. As a priest, he revealed great pastoral sensitivity, liturgical insight, and commitment to serving his church by embracing the devotional life of his Polish heritage.
Interestingly, I can still remember kneeling before Fr. Ron nearly 30 years ago to receive his First Priestly Blessing. Now, to be truthful, I can’t remember what I did yesterday! But I still have a clear memory of Fr. Ron putting his hands on my head, bending forward, and praying with such intensity that I could feel this overwhelming warmth. It was almost like he was trying to share the Spirit that he had just received, to pour it into me. When I see the rays of light coming from the heart of Jesus in the image of the Divine Mercy, I sense that I experienced that long ago through Ron. A miracle was not just what Ron received. A miracle of God’s mercy is what Ron was and is.
It is in that light of Divine Mercy, in the light of the Christmas star, that Fr. Ron now lives. Allow me to close with a quote from the great theologian, Karl Rahner: “The great sad mistake of many people… is to imagine that those whom death has taken, leave us. They do not leave us. They remain! Where are they? In darkness? Oh, no! It is we who are in darkness. We do not see them, but they see us. Their eyes, radiant with glory, are fixed upon our eyes. Oh, infinite consolation! Though invisible to us, our dead are not absent…. They are living near us, transfigured…into light, into power, into love.”
Understanding Christmas
Most of us understand Christmas as a day. How do we make Christmas a way of life? When the gifts from Santa have all been unwrapped and put away, how do we continue to daily unwrap and live the gifts of God? We do it by focusing on the spiritual and the eternal, rather than on the material and time limited. Allow me to offer an example.
Not long ago, a wonderful, young lady offered me a copy of a poem, a reflection, she had written, honoring Jada, her dog, who had just died. Allow me to excerpt a few sentences from her tribute:
“How is it that you have been with me for so long, yet it seemed like only a moment? Your love is unconditional. Your trust is boundless. Your innocence is never ending….Although you will not be in my arms, you will always be in my heart… So, when others come along for me to love, as you know they will, I will teach them what you taught me, about love, trust, and innocence.” A wonderful tribute, isn’t it? If that is wisdom from a dog, no wonder dog is God spelled backwards!
At Christmas time, we always feel joy, tinged with sadness. At Christmas we feel especially the absence of those we have celebrated with in the past. We lessen our pain at the holidays by remembering that Christmas is first a holy day, and that our prayers for those who have gone before us are still gifts we can give to them. We remember the words of the old carol: “Man will live forevermore because of Christmas day.”
On earth, we honor the memory of those who have died by remembering their best qualities, and trying to live those qualities in our lives. We honor their lives by trying to live well our own lives!
Would not Christmas day change all of our days if we really tried to live the gifts listed above: unconditional love, boundless trust, and innocence? Let’s look at them separately.
Unconditional love is one of the best descriptions of Christmas. Only a God who loved us unconditionally would have bothered to create us, and then, in the midst of humanity’s tortured history, bother to enter that history to redeem us.
We humans are not very good at loving unconditionally. We are all broken, fearful, and weak. Yet, it was in a broken stable, to fearful shepherds, to ‘weak’ humans, that God first revealed Himself. We do not make ourselves worthy of God. God makes us worthy of Himself.
Trust is what it takes to believe that. If we can trust that we are loved without condition, then we can bury our guilt, fear, shame, and sinfulness in the stable, and allow God to love us into being all we can be for His honor and glory.
Innocence is what is restored. We have all fallen from innocence. Like Adam and Eve, we have all tasted of the forbidden fruit of sin. But Christmas is God’s answer to the fall. Humans can abandon God, but God will not abandon us. Through Adam, sin entered the world. Through Christ, redemption and love conquered sin. The innocence of the child in the manger restores innocence to the child within us all. If we can TRUST God enough to accept God’s UNCONDITIONAL LOVE, which is Christ, then we are reborn in INNOCENCE in the image and likeness of God. The words of the Christmas carol sum it up: “Cast out our sins and enter in, be born in us today!”
Accepting those gifts is a daily choice. Sharing those gifts with others is a daily challenge. To accept God’s gifts and to share God’s gifts changes Christmas from a day celebration into a celebration of all the days of our lives!
If someone asked you the purpose, the mission, of your life, could you answer in one sentence? If someone asked you the purpose, the mission, of your parish church, could you answer that in one sentence? Today, instead of thinking of individual New Year’s resolutions, that we will likely, quickly forget, why not think of specific resolutions for our lives that we can connect with our parishes?
A consultant for the Gallup organization on building vital churches, has said: “A mission statement that can’t fit on a bumper sticker will be ineffective”. St. Margaret’s Parish in Belair, working with the Gallup organization, put this provisional, mission statement on a bumper sticker: “Live the Gospel. Serve God and One Another.” That same statement was also put on bookmarks to be distributed to all parishioners, and on the back of the bookmark were these 14 statements, 14 expectations of parishioners’ commitment to their parish. If I am engaged in the life of my parish, do I do the following:
First, do I spend some time in prayer every day. Every study indicates that people who are serious about spiritual growth are connected to a larger group with the same interest.
Second, do I attend Mass at least weekly? The heart of Catholic worship is gathering to meet the Risen Lord in the eucharist, the Mass.
Third, do I let my faith guide my daily activities. A friend of mine from Altoona remembered belonging to the Boy Savior Club as a child. Their prayer was: “Boy Savior, guide my behavior.” He added: “Sometimes we also prayed: “Boy Savior, ignore my behavior!” As someone said so profoundly: “If I was on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict me?”
Fourth, do I forgive those who have hurt me? Forgiving others, as we are continually being forgiven by God, is fundamental to Christian living.
Fifth, do I have meaning and purpose in my life? Do I believe that God created me for a job, a purpose, that He gave to no one else?
Sixth, do I seek to know and to develop my strengths? Too often we focus on what we do wrong and get discouraged. Instead, suppose we focused on our gifts – our ability to speak, to serve, to write, to cook, to fix things, to lead others, to organize, to encourage, and on and on. Ask yourself: “What do I do best?” Keep doing it better and better. That’s your special talent from God.
Seventh, do I take a stand when necessary to defend my faith? Much prejudice against the Catholic Church is rooted in ignorance. You don’t have to become hostile or angry. Just explain: “No, that’s not what we believe or do as Catholics? Or, “This is why we do this.”
Eighth, Do I enjoy inner peace? “Peace to God’s people on earth” was sung by the angels at the birth of Jesus, and “Peace” was the first word spoken by the Risen Jesus after His death. What disturbs my peace? How can the parish help?
Ninth, do I speak words of encouragement and kindness to others? What we give to others is what we will keep for ourselves.
Tenth, do I consider myself spiritually committed? Do we really believe that we are constantly surrounded by the presence of God?
Eleventh, do I give generously of my time, talent, and resources?
Twelfth, do I feel satisfied with the way things are going in my life? Have I learned to drop my expectations of how life ‘should be’, and learned instead to live in gratitude for all that life is?
Thirteenth, do I invite others to Mass and to other events at my parish?
Fourteenth, do I volunteer at least 100 hours per year, ( 2 hours per week) to serve others in the church and/or community?
George Gallup calls the Catholic Church the ‘sleeping giant’. What if everyone in the parish contributed 100 hours a year? What if the sleeping giant woke up? Would not this kind of Spirit-filled energy renew the face of the earth?
Holy Mary, Mother of God
Catholic Review, December 3, 2003
The Leading Cause of Death
Catholic Review, December 10, 2003
The Real Miracle
Catholic Review, December 17, 2003
Understanding Christmas
Catholic Review, December 24, 2003
Waking the Sleeping Giant
Catholic Review, December 31, 2003